Athena, Age Twelve
by IzztreeRocks912
Summary: Someone in Europe has beaten Artemis at chess. Someone in Europe has an IQ two points higher than his. Someone in Europe is a genius...and she is only twelve years old.


Chapter 1

A few authors notes:

So, I've never really been on an online chess site, so I don't really know what they look like. I'm just assuming. I also don't know anything about chess strategies except how to play, so I just assumed, but cut me some slack.

By the way, this story will make more sense if you know how to play chess, but it doesn't really affect the whole , it's better I'd you understand chess, but you don't have to to understand the story.

Second of all, it never really says Artemis's IQ exactly, but it does say almost 300, so I just picked a random number close to 300.

Third of all, for those of you who've read my other fanfic, Ginny 4 Arty (HP/AF crossover) I'm sorry I'm publishing this before I finish that, but I had this idea floating in my head and just had to get it down on paper (or a computer, whatever)

Finally, if you've read my profile you know this, but I am under 16 (not saying exactly how old) so the writing may not be that good, but please cut me some slack, I'm an amateur.

Comment please!

Disclaimer: All the characters except Athena are owned by Eoin Colfer. I own Athena and the plot, except the tiny segment in the first paragraph that was mentioned in the books.

Artemis had never been so humiliated in his life, and that included the time he was caught hacking into school computers when he was six to make the test questions harder. That was humiliating because his mother had spanked him in front of Juliet, Butler, and his father.

What was humiliating this time was that someone had beaten him. At chess, of all things! He, who had beaten a world chess champion in six moves!

It all started when he was bored one afternoon, which didn't happen very often. He was on an online chess site, looking for an opponent that would actually remotely challenge him for once, not really expecting to find any. He'd been doing this a lot recently and played with a few opponents, who'd strongly disappointed him.

He caught attention of someone. Someone named Athena. Apparently, she had won against a chess champion too, although he had only been a national champion. What interested him most, though, were the words age 12.

This Athena person happened to be online at the time also, so he challenged her to a chess match. She replied back almost immediately with instant messaging on the site: "Sure. But do you really think you're up to the task?"

Artemis wrote back: "Me? I have the highest tested IQ in Europe!"

"No, I do."

Artemis assumed that she had an IQ of 150 or 160 or something and thought that was a high IQ. Well, he would show her.

"Really? My IQ is 284. What's yours?"

"286."

Now, Artemis knew that Athena wasn't lying. You didn't lie about your intelligence to a genius whose chess challenge you'd accepted, because you knew that they would just beat you at chess right afterward and prove your IQ was much lower than you said. No, Athena's IQ was exactly how high she said it was.

Artemis was surprised that anyone in Europe had an IQ higher than him (Athena's profile said that she lived in Paris.)

And for some reason, he could just see the smirk on her face.

Oh, well. 2 points didn't matter. He could probably beat her at chess easily.

Things did not go as he'd hoped.

It started out okay. She was a little bit hard at first, but that was to be expected. It proved that Athena wasn't as experienced as him, because experienced chess players knew that you saved your best strategies for last, when you were about to launch a checkmate attempt.

Athena was proving harder to beat than moss opponents Artemis had met (online, not exactly met), but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle. After all, he'd played an international chess champion and won.

This was great for him, because he liked having a challenge that he knew he would overcome.

After some amount of time, Athena tried to checkmate him. It was actually very clever how she did it. She caused a diversion to the left of the board with her rook, knight, and bishop, and Artemis knew she was trying to make him think she was trying to checkmate him with those, but he could see that she was really trying to do it to the right of the board with her queen and her other knight.

Artemis had to admit, he was impressed. She was better than probably everyone he had played, including the international champion, because it had taken only six moves to checkmate him but this was taking almost an hour.

Anyone would have fallen for that trick.

Anyone except Artemis.

Your smart, Athena, but I'm smarter, he thought. Despite the IQ thing, I mean.

So imagine his surprise when Athena checkmated him the very next move with only a bishop and a rook.

Artemis understood now. The whole plan had been a diversion. Athena had led him to believe that she was trying to checkmate him with her queen and knight, and that the knight, rook, and bishop had been a diversion, when really she had checkmated him with her other rook and bishop, and the queen and the knight had been a diversion.

How could he have been so stupid as to not see her real plan?

As if she could read his mind through the Internet, Athena instant messages him: "Because you're too vain, that's why. You were too caught up on your little plan to checkmate me that you didn't even notice my real plan. You, the supposed genius! But then again, I am a genius too. Remember Thene19 and Athi86?"

Artemis did, indeed. Those were the screen names of the two previous opponents he had battled.

"Those were all me. I was trying to figure out your strategy...and it worked. You were too focused on winning to realize I as unraveling your strategy step by step. I lost on purpose to see your strategies of checkmating. That's one reason why you lost today. Partially because I'm good, but partially because of your own vanity."

And Artemis knew it was true.

"And, by the way, Artemis, you really need to vary your strategies more. It only took me too games to figure out your whole style. And if your too stubborn to change them around, at least make them less visible."

And with that, she signed off.

Just like that, Artemis's opponent had the last word.

Frond, he hated when other people had the last word.

Especially when they had just beaten him at chess. But then again, that had never happened before, so he really didn't have much experience in the matter.

Artemis signed off too.

It had been a long day.

I might not be able to update for a while because I'm kind of having a writer's block on this story. I want Arty and Athena to meet in real life so PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GIVE ME IDEAS! OR THIS STORY WILL NEVER GO ON!

Maybe that's an exaggeration. I might think of something eventually. And I really don't know whether or not you care if it goes on. But if you do, PLEASE HELP ME THINK OR IT WON'T GO ON FOR A WHILE! ;)


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